


Seducing Ninjas

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Iron Man (Movieverse)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missing scene from Something Different, wherein Pepper and Natalie have far too much fun for a single evening, and the mystery location of Pepper's New Pumps is revealed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seducing Ninjas

"A few drinks" started with two apple martinis, which Pepper knew she could take. Somehow, two turned into a third. After that, she ended up taking a shot of vodka with Natalie, though she didn't remember agreeing to it. There was only Natalie's hand on her thigh under the table, and a murmur that _one more wouldn't hurt_ and then the lipstick-smeared shot glass that she was _positive_ wasn't her shade.

They never made it to the dance floor. After the second shot, Pepper's balance was as shaky as her confidence, and Natalie hadn't objected to keeping her pinned safe in a corner booth while other people danced for them. The name of the place escaped Pepper's memory, but it had the sort of music that she felt in her bones, and enough bright lights and dark corners that getting lost was easy. She never would have been there on her own; most of the dancing she did was at the charity events, and drinking to get drunk or to escape just wasn't her.

Somehow, doing it with Natalie was different. She lost track of the number of drinks she had after the first shot, and it wasn't even because she was depressed. Scarcely the first half-hour had been spent talking about Tony. Then they'd moved on to clothes, and the latest barely-not-porn action movie to come out of Hollywood, and then mutual lamenting of superheroes in general. Something about having someone who _listened_, combined with the warm press of Natalie against her side, just made the night flash by.

"And _then_," Pepper explained, using her hands to describe an arc over the table. "Spider-Man just... _Whoosh_, zoomed off, and left me covered in that web stuff. It took an hour to wear off. An hour!" Her fingers stung when she swatted the table for emphasis. "Of course, that was before we hired you. Spider-Man doesn't do much work in Los Angeles. All the superheroes are in New _York_." When she lifted her water glass, she paused to eye the rim. Both she and Natalie were wearing a creamy sort of peach lipstick, but Natalie's was pinkier and Pepper's was peachier, and Pepper was certain that the pinkier shade was on her cup. "You've been stealing my water."

"I have _not_." Natalie leaned into her, cheeks flushed with the alcohol, but she was holding it much better than Pepper. "Well, maybe. A little. Your water tastes better," she pouted, resting her cheek on Pepper's shoulder and peering up. Tonight she was in a tight pair of pants and a ridiculously low-cut, peacock-print blouse. Next to her, Pepper felt frumpy in her pencil-line skirt and plain ivory blouse.

"Well, your vodka tastes better," Pepper groused, reaching for the next shot glass. The longer the liquor flowed, the less she cared to keep her eyes above Natalie's collarbone. Just then, not caring sounded like a good idea. She'd lost track of how many shots there had been, but it couldn't have been too many. She was still upright-ish.

"That's because it's flavored," Natalie explained loftily, wrinkling her nose. "I don't like it straight."

Lifting the glass in salute to her friend, Pepper threw it back, then dropped it to the table. "I know _that_ already."

Big green eyes stared up at her for a moment. Slowly, Natalie crumpled forward, shoulders shaking as she erupted into shrieking laughter. Her downward slide took her from Pepper's shoulder to the table, and then down into her lap, still giggling.

Pepper gaped, then snickered as the ridiculousness of the situation took over. She folded over Natalie, pressing her face into the cool wood of the table and clutching Natalie's shoulders. Every time she giggled, her breasts bounced against Natalie, and _oh God_ she was wearing the comfortable bra, not one of her lacy ones. It didn't make any sense, but the knowledge that her breasts were in thin cotton while they pressed against Natalie's shoulder blades was the funniest thing in the world just then. Pepper gasped and sat up against the black suede booth seat, stuffing her fist in her mouth to muffle herself.

Black smeared under the lower lid of Natalie's eyes where her eyeliner had been carefully smudged. It made her eyes look wicked as she rolled over to look up, still giggling. She hooked her heels on the edge of the seat, giving Pepper a good view of just how toned her legs were.

"You know," Natalie said firmly, without a trace of the slur that had over-taken Pepper's voice. "You know, you're sexy. Really sexy. I don't know why you don't dress up more."

Blinking at her, Pepper digested the question slowly. "_Because_—because if I dressed up, then people would think I was _seducing_ someone." There, that was a good start. It sounded familiar; probably someone had said something similar once. "And if I'm seducing someone, then they won't _respect_ me. And you've got to have respect."

"But you're not seducing anyone."

"And I have respect," Pepper nodded, and then kept nodding until she remembered to stop. "I was a CEO until Tony drove me crazy and blew up New York. I couldn't have done that if I'd been seducing someone."

Natalie's gaze had gone distant before Pepper finished her careful explanation. She stared into middle distance for a while, then her expression brightened. "You could seduce me." As quickly as it had come, her smile faded. "No, wait, you can't. I'm not allowed to be seduced."

"Because you're an employee," Pepper agreed solemnly, and then took another drink of water. It was a sad thing that Natalie wasn't in the _able to be seduced_ category.

Surprisingly, Natalie shook her head. "No! Because I'm a _ninja_."

That was when Pepper realized that Natalie was much, much drunker than she was. "You can't be a ninja. You're a Natalie. Natalies aren't ninjas."

"I _am_."

The motion of Natalie's head against Pepper's thigh had pulled half the hair from her banana clip. Thoughtfully, Pepper pulled it the rest of the way out, and stored it in her purse. "Alright. You're a ninja. Why can't I seduce a ninja?" Ninjas, to Pepper's way of thinking, were eminently seduce-able. Much more so than co-workers and employees.

"It would compromise my mission."

Ice water chilled Pepper's lips as she took another drink, thinking over the problem. And somehow, it had very much become a problem. "You could seduce me. Then it would be—would be deliberate. Going beyond the call of duty." Or something. It made sense before she said it aloud. "Were you supposed to seduce Tony?"

Natalie's lips pressed together, the way they had when she denied stealing water. "No. Maybe. Sort of. It wasn't a real order—no one _said_..."

"Of course no one said. Because that would be _wrong_." Nodding down at Natalie again, Pepper waved a waitress over. One more shot each. On the dance floor, the crowd was thinning as the night wore on, which meant it was getting late. "But if you flirted a bit and—and maybe Tony liked you because you're sexy, then _that_ was okay. It was _implied_."

"Exactly!"

"That's what gorgeous ninja women do. They seduce billionaire genius idiots."

"Right!"

"But you can't. Cause you're gay." The logic ducks all lined up in a row behind Pepper's eyes. "So you'll seduce his female assistant, and then you'll be okay and have followed implied not-really-orders and everything."

Natalie blinked up at her placidly, getting a strange look as the waitress set down their shots. "Do you want to be seduced, Pepper? I want to seduce you. Even if I weren't a ninja."

Pepper petted back Natalie's curls. She was still mostly sober enough to know that sex while drunk was a very, very bad idea, and sex with a friend while drunk _and_ getting over a break-up was worse. But she liked having Natalie's head on her lap, and talking to her, and the last part of her relationship with Tony had been so lonely...

"I think— I think that I do," she admitted slowly. "But you should ask me again tomorrow."

"What if you say no?"

"Then ask me again. And again. And again." Pepper's head bobbed with every repetition. "And keep asking until I say yes. Or until I'm drunk. Then don't ask, because I'll say yes. And that would be bad."

There was a moment while their equally sluggish thoughts caught up with that sentence, but eventually Natalie nodded and sat up. "Right." She picked up her shot glass, lifting it in a salute. Pepper lifted hers, and they touched. "For America!"

"For America," Pepper agreed, knocking her drink back. It was Natalie's vodka again, sweet with some sort of fake fruit, and only a little burn. She would have to ask what type it was, for the next time. "We should call a taxi. A cab. We can't drive. What's the number for a cab?"

"Jarvis."

"Jarvis isn't a cab. Or a phone number."

"No, Jarvis is a _house_." Natalie was already reaching for Pepper's phone. "He can call for us. It'll be faster. People answer fast for Jarvis."

That statement made Pepper frown, and then frown deeper when Natalie started dialing on _her_ phone. "Jarvis is not a _he_. He's a _house_."

"He's a _male_ house—_Jarvis_! We were just—What? No, this isn't Pepper." Natalie frowned at the phone, then passed it over. "He thinks I'm you."

"He is a _house_," Pepper repeated, then shrieked when Natalie poked her in the ribs. "Stop that! Jarvis? Jarvis, hello?"

"Miss Potts?" a confused, slightly sleepy, definitely not British voice asked.

Pepper frowned. "Jarvis, you sound sexier than usual. And more American. Did Tony change your programming again?"

"What? No—this isn't Jarvis. It's Steve." Something shuffled and crackled on the other end of the line. For a moment, it sounded like someone else was talking, but that was ridiculous. Jarvises didn't get crossed wires.

But this wasn't Jarvis. This was Steve. Maybe Steves got crossed wires.

Pepper pulled the phone away from her ear to glare at it. "It's not Jarvis."

"Not Jarvis?" Natalie repeated, leaning on Pepper's shoulder to look down at the phone in astonishment.

"Not Jarvis." Agreement reached, Pepper put the phone back to her ear. "Not Jarvis— I mean, Steve. We need a cab. Natalie and I. We wanted Jarvis to call one. Well, Natalie wanted Jarvis to call one, but Tony put this thing on my cell phone so we don't really have to Jarvis and—"

"Wait—hold on, just a second." Steve was sounding much more awake. That was good. Asleep people didn't call for cabs very well. "Are you two drunk?"

"Yes!" they chorused at the phone, and then broke down into giggles.

"Sir," Real Jarvis cut in, and there was the sexy British voice Pepper liked so much, "I have a lock on their location based on the GPS in Ms. Pott's cellular phone."

Once again, Pepper frowned. "Tony said you couldn't stalk me that way anymore."

"Mr. Stark lied, Ms. Potts."

That would be something they would have to talk about. Tony lied too much. He didn't tell her when he was dying, and he didn't tell her when there were people trying to kill him, and he didn't tell her when he built a big red suit of armor and was flying around exploding things. It wasn't right. Pepper was suddenly filled with righteous indignation for all the things Tony didn't tell her.

"Well! You can tell _Mister_ Stark that he can't lie to me ever again," she told Real Jarvis sternly. "I have the ninja now."

"She does!" Natalie added loudly, twisting in her seat to put a leg around Pepper's waist and planting a noisy kiss on her cheek. Pepper could have sworn that Jarvis sighed, but that was silly. Houses didn't sigh.

"We'll be there to pick you up soon," Steve promised. "Just—stay put. Be careful. Don't drink anymore."

Pepper nodded at the phone, forgetting that it wasn't one of the video-devices. Natalie's hand crept up her ribs, and Pepper swatted at her, glaring pointedly at the employees who were eyeing them.

Steve hesitated. "... Miss Potts? Are you still there?"

Natalie didn't seem at all deterred by their watchers. Pepper squirmed and hunched her shoulders when Natalie nuzzled her neck. "No, I'm trying to fight off a ninja."

"A sexy ninja," Natalie corrected. Her face was mostly hidden by her hair, but Pepper was pretty sure she was smiling. "And you'll be a sexy ninja too, when I'm done with you."

"I'm fighting a sexy ninja," she passed on to Steve, planting a peachier-than-Natalie's kiss to the corner of Natalie's mouth, which made the other woman hum.

"I thought you couldn't seduce me."

"This is pre-seduction," Pepper explained, without removing the phone from her ear. "It's different."

"Oh. That's okay."

_Steve_ definitely sighed, and that was okay, because strange, muscular blond men were supposed to sigh. Houses weren't. "We'll be there soon. Stay put." The phone beeped as the call disconnected.

Natalie plucked it from Pepper's fingers, stuffing it inside a purse. Then she snuggled back up against Pepper's side. "Is he sending a cab?"

"I think Steve is coming to get us." Frowning, Pepper took a sip of her water, only to find it mostly empty, with new smears of pinkier-than-peach lipstick. She put down the cup loudly. "He said to stay." That bothered her. She didn't want to stay put, and he didn't have any right to tell her to. The club wasn't quite closing, but everything had started to slow, and it was getting hot and stifling now that she had stopped to think about it. "We should go wait outside."

"Should we? I'm comfortable." To emphasize, Natalie wiggled closer, until she was nearly in Pepper's lap. "If we go outside, will you pre-seduce me more?"

Pepper frowned. There would be people out there, and cars, and cameras. She wasn't sure she was okay with that. But her blouse was sticking to her back, and there was a spot just above Natalie's collarbone that looked kind of tasty. "Okay, but only after the car gets here."

"Spoil-sport." Natalie huffed, but grabbed her purse and slid out of the booth. When she rose to her feet, there was no sign that her balance had been affected at all by liquor. Even in four-inch heels, she was rock-steady.

Doing her best to imitate Natalie's graceful stance, Pepper pushed to her feet. Immediately, she wobbled and had to clutch the edge of the table for balance. She clung for a while two minutes before her fingers slipped, and she dropped backwards.

After plopping inelegantly back into the booth, Pepper stared accusingly down at her feet and pouted. They were nicely dressed feet, too, in a new pair of simple beige pumps. It wasn't fair. Natalie could stand! In a fit of disgust, she kicked her shoes off and tried again. This time she was able to get vertical, with a lot of help from Natalie that also involved a lot of hands where they really shouldn't have been in public. She squeaked and dodged, almost falling over again until she was able to steady herself on the table. Without the extra inches, she was much more stable, though the dark and lights made it hard to tell that she was standing still. "There!"

Shoes stored safely in a purse, Pepper and Natalie weaved their way outside. The floor was unpleasantly sticky, and occasionally covered in crunchy things. Every time something broke or squished under her toes, Pepper squirmed inside and vowed to never ever _ever_ wear high heels to drink in again. It was far too gross.

Outside wasn't much better. The concrete was cold underfoot, and the evening had cooled dramatically since she'd first gone inside. They found a wall to lean against where the spring wind couldn't reach them and waited. Pepper wanted to sit down, but after consulting Natalie and her balance, decided that she probably wouldn't get up again if she did that, and then whoever was coming would have to carry her, and it would just be a mess.

When Tony's steel grey Mercedes pulled up to the curb, Pepper bounced up straight to wave, and the caught herself on Natalie's shoulder when she wobbled. Happy rolled down the window, frowning at them while two strange men in Stark Industries nametags got out of the back. Without needing to be asked, Pepper handed one of them her keys. She wouldn't be driving, and she'd need her car in the morning. Natalie did the same.

"They have snake tattoos," Pepper commented idly, giggling and almost falling over as she twisted to watch the tattoos walk away. They were pretty—small little green snakes eating their own tail, tattooed just behind the left ear.

Then someone else stood up from inside the front passenger seat, leaning out the window, and she was distracted by a different sort of pretty. "Are you two okay?" Steve asked. He was in a light blue pajama top, which irrationally perked Pepper up. If he'd been sleeping with Tony, he wouldn't have been in clothes. And there would have been a lot of bite marks. Tony liked biting.

"You told me they were drunk, but I didn't believe you," Happy commented. His big, flat face was set in a more worried scowl than usual. Immediately, Pepper's perk drooped.

"I'm so, so, so sorry. I just—you know, with Tony, and then Natalie and the drinks and ninjas steal water," she explained, leaning in through the driver's window to wrap Happy in a hug. "Thank you for picking us up."

Happy had barely started to hug back before another set of arms wrapped around Pepper's waist and yanked her back through the window.

"No!" Natalie snapped, clutching Pepper possessively. She wobbled a little as she tugged Pepper towards the back door of the car. "You owe me."

Pepper made a single attempt to pull away, but her feet tangled around each other and Natalie was easily able to shove her head down and force her into the backseat. Leather interior squeaked as Pepper fell backwards onto the bench seat, and then _she_ squeaked when Natalie lifted her legs and shoved her in more. The door slammed loudly, with a smug little click as the lock engaged.

The car rocked as Steve settled back into the front passenger seat, making Pepper clutch the armrest. When Natalie had shoved her, she'd ended up half lying down, with her shoulders pressed up against the door and her legs awkwardly twisted around. Luckily, the Mercedes had plenty of room, or she would have been squished.

Natalie, on the other hand, was sitting perfectly primly. "We're inside the car," she announced pointedly, crossing her arms. "Don't I get anything?"

Rolling her eyes, Pepper grabbed Natalie's shoulders and yanked her down. Natalie didn't try to fight Pepper's tug. Plastic scraped as Natalie's heels caught on something when she twisted. She settled right against Pepper like a puzzle piece, their breasts sliding together until the angle was just right.

When Pepper kissed Natalie for the first time, her lips were sticky and tasted like sweet flavored vodka.

At first, the lack of facial hair was startling. After a minute with Natalie's lips sliding against hers, Pepper decided that not having anything tickle her nose was a good thing. It was a little awkward—the car kept them from stretching out, and they rocked every time Happy had to stop, but Pepper was able to hook her knee up and over Natalie's thigh, and that helped. Natalie pushed Pepper's skirt up to her thighs so it would stop being in the way, and that helped even more. It helped so much that Pepper returned the favor, and pushed Natalie's shirt up to the bottom of her breasts.

"Not fair," Natalie muttered, scraping her nails up Pepper's thigh to just under the hem of her skirt. "You said not while drunk." Her lipstick had all worn off except for a little bit around the edge of her lips. Everything else that was left was Pepper's.

"That's different," Pepper insisted, finding that spot on Natalie's collar bone that she'd spied earlier and biting it. She'd been right. It did taste good. Natalie groaned in her ear, and pushed her skirt even higher.

Someone up front cleared his throat. Together, they paused, glancing forward.

Steve had twisted around to face them. Every time they passed a light post, Pepper found her eyes drawn to the tips of his ears. Shed never seen ears blush that red before. "Please stop," he said, voice strained. "You're both—not thinking right."

"And I can't watch and drive," Happy chimed in. Pepper's bare foot slammed into the back of the seat in reprisal.

"You'll regret it in the morning," Steve added, glancing over at Happy with a disapproving look. He settled back into his seat with a click of a seatbelt.

Natalie muttered something in Russian and dropped her head to Pepper's shoulder. "Fine," she huffed, hiding her face behind a fall of curls.

Pepper ran her fingers through Natalie's hair and closed her eyes. "You can seduce me tomorrow," she reminded her, ignoring the way Happy started coughing. Natalie nodded against her shoulder, humming. The car had settled into the smooth, steady pace that said _freeway_. Her bones had gone soft, and she felt loose-limbed and light. It hit her suddenly, as soon as she didn't have Natalie's lips or body to distract her.

They were both asleep before the car reached the driveway.


End file.
